Thousands of Nigerian nurses can’t work or “japa” because NMCN has refused to release their certificates

Thousands of Nigerian nurses who have completed their training and passed their professional exams are stuck in limbo, unable to get jobs or practice their profession, because a government regulatory body has refused to issue them their certificates.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) is the official body responsible for certifying nurses and midwives in Nigeria. It acts as a licensing board, where, without their stamp of approval, a qualified nurse legally cannot work in most hospitals or pursue a nursing career abroad, no matter how many years they spent in school or how well they performed in their exams.

Since 2023, the NMCN has reportedly not been issuing certificates to graduates from nursing schools, colleges of nursing sciences, and universities across the country.

Affected nurses, Registered Nurses (RNs), say they have completed every requirement asked of them, yet remain uncertified, and therefore unemployable in most formal settings, three years on.

Those affected say the delay has effectively frozen their careers before they even started.

The Elegant Nurses Forum (ENF), a professional advocacy group, raised the alarm on Sunday in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Thomas Abiodun Olamide.

The group described the situation as a "prolonged and unjustifiable delay" and said the root cause appears to be a leadership vacuum within the NMCN, meaning the council may not have the functional leadership in place needed to carry out its basic duties.

"The silence has been deafening," the group said, adding that nurses who have met all requirements deserve transparency and accountability, not neglect.

There is a wider concern here, too. Some hospitals in Nigeria allow nurses to work without a certificate on a limited basis, but without it, a nurse cannot successfully use their qualification to relocate abroad, a path many Nigerian healthcare workers are actively pursuing in what has been widely called the "Japa" syndrome.

This is the ongoing mass emigration of skilled Nigerians seeking better opportunities overseas.

Some observers have suggested the delay may be a sly attempt to slow that emigration by making it harder for nurses to obtain the documents they need to leave. That claim has not been officially confirmed.

What remains clear is that thousands of trained, qualified nurses remain sidelined, and the NMCN has offered no public explanation to the chagrin of many students found stuck as a result of the situation.

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